We are in a technology-driven digital era and careers pertaining to the same have an ever-expanding scope for growth. There is an escalating need for digital marketing experts to market products and businesses in the tech-savvy target group.
With businesses needing digital marketing experts more so than ever before, there is no dearth of opportunities in the market, for those with the right skills. Digital marketing as a career combines a plethora of aspects such as design, SEO, social media marketing, content creation and much more.
A growing pool of opportunities has compelled many individuals to feel intrigued by this career field. How do you stand out? Here’s everything you will ever need to know about digital marketing.
Why should you become a digital marketer?
The digital economy is growing at a great speed, as everything is going online. According to a 2018 report by Marketing Hiring Trends, 69 per cent of companies were keen on hiring more digital marketers. In fact, the report suggested that there was a colossal gap between the demand and supply, with demand standing at 59 per cent and the supply being at 19 per cent. This means that learning digital marketing can improve your chances of getting hired and climbing the ladder in your career.
The profession is believed to offer faster growth as well because companies are realising the importance of digital marketing to reach a wider audience, expand their business and generate revenue.
Which skills do you need to become a digital marketing expert?
Like any other profession, you need a plethora of skills to succeed in digital marketing. In fact, this being a dynamic and growing field of work, the list is rather huge. However, in this digital era, if you possess these skills, you will be able to elevate your brand to a whole new level. Here are the skills you need to become a successful digital marketing expert.
Excel skills
They taught us Excel back in school, so ideally, we should all know the basics: how to create tables, addition, subtraction, etc. And then we go on to write in our resumes that we are proficient in Excel. That’s not what proficiency looks like. If you don’t know beyond the basics, upskill!
With a huge amount of data, a digital marketer deals with, knowing how to quickly analyse data on excel will save you a lot of time and effort. You can simply go for a quick online course on a learning platform, or find a tutorial online to help you become an Excel expert.
Data analysis skills
Don’t fret, you won’t have to possess the same level of data analysis skills as a data scientist would. However, you will have to be able to analyse the performance of your marketing campaigns through data insights.
With so many online tools available, data analysis helps digital marketers to make better marketing decisions, measure campaign performances and achieve their targets. Google Analytics is an efficient tool to get detailed information about your traffic, most favourable keywords, and to better define the demographic of your consumers.
Content writing skills
They say content is king, and it indeed is. Whether you are looking at ad copy, a newsletter, a social media post and caption or a blog post, good content writing skills can help you ace all of it. If you can generate good content and turn a bad one around, you will become an asset to your organisation in the field of digital marketing.
This is a skill you should develop by reading and analysing the content produced by other reputed sources. You can also brush up your virtuosity with words with practice and online tutorials.
SEO skills
Organic search results are much more likely to be clicked on than sponsored results. Thus, you must have a good understanding of implementing strong Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) practices.
This can include content marketing, guest blogging, link building, generating superior content, using the right keywords and much more. You should also be aware of the correct usage of title tags, H1 and H2 tags, etc.
Knowing how to find the correct keywords for your topic/product can help your brand’s website and blog appear organically in search results.
SEM skills
Search Engine Marketing is about marketing a business using paid ads that appear in search results. Advertisers use keywords that users may enter in a search engine such as Google when looking for something specific. SEM offers a business to put their products right in front of potential consumers who were looking for exactly what they have to offer.
This makes it a great tool for brands. Knowing how to use SEM optimally can help give your digital marketing career a major boost. Keyword research remains the foundation of SEM and if you’d nailed that, half of your job there is done.
Social media skills
It is a no-brainer that a digital marketing expert needs to know various social media platforms thoroughly. With an increase in the usage of social media platforms, digital markets should know how to reach their target using the same. This means you will have to know what works on various platforms, the best time to post something, and how your audience consumes content. A digital marketing expert should be good at creating a social media strategy and staying on top of trends.
Understanding the algorithm of a social media platform and being skilled at efficiently using paid advertisements, hashtags, community building and more is equally important.
Communication skills
Digital marketing is all about communication, be it visual, textual or both. It is about sending across a message impactful enough for your audience to be intrigued. Knowing what message to send across, and how, is a skill that can make a digital marketer go places.
Having good communication skills will help you generate content that is powerful and interesting for your audience to consume. You should also be able to apply varying perspectives to the same piece of information, thus generating content that is unique and helps your brand stand out.
Basic design skills
While the text is important, it is what you see that first captures your attention. This means knowing how to present data in a visually appealing manner is key to creating engagement. Whether you have a designer in your team or you are doing it on your own, having basic design skills is a must.
Knowledge about software such as Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, etc), Canva, Inkscape will help you generate visually appealing content. You will be able to create your own designs, if need be. And if you have a dedicated designer, you will be able to oversee their work and better communicate your requirements.
…and the list goes on
The list of skills you must possess in this ever-expanding, dynamic field of work is endless. Knowledge of email marketing will help you reach your consumers directly, and these are the people who showed interest by subscribing to know more about your brand. It will help you build patronage, increase visibility and keep your potential customers informed of what’s new.
Marketing automation is also important as it helps you create automated tasks for your digital audience, making things smoother in the process. You should know how to set up forms and create landing pages efficiently, recognising potential leads.
Influencer marketing is another upcoming aspect that is raging like wildfire. With influencers being able to reach a wide audience, you should know which ones are valuable to your brand and what kind of message you’d like to put forth.
Having basic HTML and CMS skills will make your work hassle-free, as well.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is a field of work that has great demand in the job market and is also becoming increasingly crucial to growing businesses. Developing skills pertaining to this field is bound to help in your career, whether you are working as a digital marketer or in any other profession.
FAQs
1) What is the difference between social media marketing and digital marketing?
Digital marketing includes social media but is not limited to it. You have several aspects to work with, including blogs, websites, email marketing, paid advertisements, influencer marketing and much more. Social media marketing on the other hand is limited to, as the name suggests, social media platforms.
2) Are there good opportunities available in digital marketing?
There is a gap between the demand and supply of digital marketers, with demand being much more. This means there are several opportunities that a person with the right skills can avail.
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